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In business, goal setting encourages business owners to put in substantial effort. Also, because every one has defined expectations for their role, little room is left for inadequate effort to go unnoticed. Goals are therefore an important tool for business owners, since goals have the ability to function as a self-regulatory mechanism that everyone involved put forth a certain level of activity. Shalley, Locke and Latham have distilled four mechanisms through which goal setting can affect individual performance:

Yesterday I was notified that my good friend, mentor and associate, Gene Moss, passed away at the age of 71. For those of us who knew Gene we understand that we lost one of the very good ones. Gene was a gentle soul who was always willing to share with those who knew and those he had just met. His kind and giving nature made Gene a true treasure to everyone he touched; he will be greatly missed by all. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Pam and all of Gene’s family and friends.

1. The Basic Premise of Home Ownership – That Homes Increase in Value Over Time – Is Sound

The housing bubble was created by an irrational, widespread belief that home prices would continue to go up and up — an extreme corruption of a generally valid premise. “It’s a totally sound premise that houses will become worth more over time because the dollar is becoming worth less as the financial landscape worsens.” Read More→

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index shows prices increased in June from May in 19 of the 20 cities tracked. A separate figure shows prices rose 3.6% in the April-June quarter from the previous quarter. Those numbers are not adjusted for seasonal factors. Over the past 12 months, home prices have declined in all 20 cities after adjusting for seasonal factors. Chicago, Minneapolis Washington and Boston posted the biggest monthly increases. Metro areas hit hardest by the housing crisis, including Las Vegas and Phoenix, reported small seasonal increases.

Despite the uptick, the numbers contain “really no hope of any kind of surge,” David Blitzer, S&P Index Chairman David Blitzer said. “None of the fundamentals look that good,” he said.” People still have difficulty getting mortgage loans; they still have difficulty in refinancing. The banks got a lot tougher and haven’t gotten any easier no matter how you measure.” Blitzer said the housing market is taking on a regional perspective, with the Sun Belt continuing to languish and other areas of the country stabilizing. “You have to look much more into details,” he said. “You’ll some good times here and there but it’s a thin river of hope overall.” Read More→

Obviously, numbers and statistics and the correct understanding and application is crucial to any business model. But something which does not get that much attention is the incredible importance of where you draw your statistics from, do they come from reliable sources are they relevant to what you are engaged in or are they erroneous or misleading and of no value whatsoever. As someone who understands that correctly obtained and used information will not lie to me, I am sometimes astounded by what people take as accurate and truthful. Attached below are numbers generated by the NAR. You would of course believe that these are very good and valid numbers, but if you take a close luck you’ll find that’s not actually the case will get into that further in the moment. Let’s take a look at the two primary statistical methods for determining values first used by the NAR media and and second average. Read More→

Although the drop in default rates shows promise, the amount of shadow inventory still creates a dark loom over the future of housing prices, according to latest results from Standard & Poor’s U.S. Residential Performance Index. The shadow inventory of unresolved distressed properties is currently at an estimated $405 billion, representing a four-year housing inventory and one-third of the outstanding U.S. non-agency residential mortgage debt. The report states that full recovery will only occur once the supply of distressed properties shrinks to less than a quarter of the current volume. Additionally, the monthly liquidation and cure rates are at about 2.5%. This is due to an overall resolution rate of 5%, where these rates have lingered in the past nine months. The slowing first default rates allows borrowers to resolve loans and clear out the inventory instead of defaulting and adding additional units to the current inventory. Read More→

A study by west coast foreclosure research firm, ForeclosureRadar shows that along the west coast, at least, investors beat out lenders by a substantial margin in selling foreclosed property to end buyers. Buying short sales to flip is a great opportunity for some serious cash flow, and investors are proving to be much more adept at selling these homes than the banks that are foreclosing.

This also applies to homes bought at the foreclosure auction. When investors buy at auction, they take an average of 95 days to resell properties in Arizona, compared to 150 days for lender organizations. In California, auction investors offload foreclosures in 134 days compared to 227 days for banks. Investors move foreclosed property in 102 days in Nevada compared to 177 days for lenders. The comparison in Oregon is 122 days for investors and 208 days for lenders. In Washington investors move foreclosures in 164 days compared to 212 days for banks. Read More→

“Down” and “depressed” – according to the news, that’s the real estate market these days. And thanks to continuing tight credit and sluggish job growth, the United States isn’t likely to see anything like a booming real estate market for many years. But although reports about today’s real estate market sound grim, here’s something you probably haven’t heard: there’s no such thing as a “bad” real estate market. Let’s take a look at some of the patterns the real estate market can fall into, who is hurt by them and who stands to benefit. Read More→